"Candygram!"

Many of you might not get my intro. Maybe you should not. But do not blame me, because you are young. However, this is not very good game. Unless you read Gamespotting (Gamespot.coms weekly column with their editors talking about games), then you might be left clueless on what this game is somehow connected to Jaws, one of the popular movies of it’s time that nearly lead all kinds of sharks (not just Great Whites) to extinction. Well, unless you read the manual (which I didn’t, though you may just misjudge my credibility right there, trust me, a game like this doesn’t need to deserve a story,) you would not know the story of the game. However, I guess I could put something of a summary of what the story might be. You are the Mayor of a little town of the coast of Long Island (well, it was in the movie) and a huge shark comes up and begins to eat people. You get out on a boat (just you) and decide to kill that little bugger before he kills you. As with almost every game about a movie, it ends up being horrible, and Jaws is not the exception.

Graphics: 7 Pretty good for the NES. The first screen that you see (Jaws coming up attacks someone) looks very nice. Very few colors (one blue, one green, one brown, white, black, and one yellow) but it gets the job done in 1987. The “world map” has very few changes in area; you have green or brown land, or yellow beach. The Blue inlet that the boat is allowed into is filled with little whitish rocks, which prevent you from sailing around, are the only thing moving inside the water. The enemies, jellyfish, stingrays, baby Jaws (at least it seems like it is) and the big daddy himself, Jaws; all are made up on 1 color. The game also seems to break up at some times, with colors merging, making the game looks like it went threw a washing machine. All in all, with a few screw up, normal graphics for an NES game of that generation.

Gameplay: 2 Well, it really does not get as simple as this. You must go around the light blue waters searching for Jaws, the terror of the deep. You move your little boat with the D-Pad, and when you “hit something,” or the game decides that you need a little action because you have been sailing around like a nut for 5 hours, it seems that the boat has either sprung a leak, or you decide to check something out under the briny deep. You done a black SUBA suit and gun, and you move around, shooting out jellyfish, string rays, and the like It depends on where you hit something if you get large areas to move around in (open ocean) or a very small area which makes it harder to shoot enemies and easier for them to hit you. When you shoot the cnidarians and fishes, they may drop one of 3 items. A star, which gives you a small amount of points. The crabs, which fall down, and might give you a challenge to pick up, since the move, are worth large amounts of points. The last thing is the shells. These little things look like some from of Arthropod shell. You must collect these as soon as possible. The more shells you get, you can upgrade your boat weapon, the cannon, or your weapon when you find a port. When you’re sailing around, you may see a gray shark like object come out of the water. That thing is Jaws. If you run into it, the game says that “You hit Jaws!” and you go under water, with Jaws coming after you. The only difference in these explorations are that instead of enemies going up or down and left to right, you have Jaws coming after you, which, along with every other water breather, is very easy to dodge, making this game insanely easy. Sometimes, when underwater, you may encounter a smaller version of Jaws, like a baby. If you kill that, you get sent to a bonus round, where you ride in an airplane, dropping bombs on jellyfish. The more jellyfish you hit, the more shells you get. Though the game has everything a stand NES action game needs, it comes of as plain, boring, and dull as it was back in ’87.

Sound: 7 The sound was actually pretty good. The got some of the themes from Jaws inside, and in the beginning, you hear the famous tune of Jaws. You have a theme for each screen that you are in “beginning, boat, sailing, underwater” and all of them must have been made pretty well. Very few sound effects, really nothing but a cheesy gun shot sound that doesn’t sound like it is underwater, and a power-up sound when you collect a star or shell. There is always a sound byte going on, an it is very good compared to most of the stuff the NES can come up with.

Fun Factor: 2 I spent 6 dollars on this game back in July 2002. I played it on and off from that time. And I still have found very little enjoyment when I play this game or even look at it. This game was just more shovelware that came out of the NES days, when pick out 2 games, one will be crap, and another would be even worse. I advise everyone to stay as far away from this game as possible, unless you are an avid Steven Spielberg fanatic or just dumb. I’m giving this game a 4 out of 10, and it does not even deserve that, but the graphics and sound were quite exceptional for a movie-based game of the day.